Any.DO is the only productivity Android app you’ll ever need

If you’ve been looking for a slick getting-things-done (GTD) app that makes it easier than ever to get organized using your Android phone, Tel Aviv based entrepreneur Omer Perchik may have exactly what you’re looking for.

Any.DO is a free productivity app, currently available for Android only, with iOS and web versions in the making, which is so slick you’d almost think it belongs on the iPhone.

As an Android user, I’ve often been a little disappointed with the difference between how apps appear on the iPhone versus Android, and the experience tends to be just a little inferior. With Any.DO, it’s hard to imagine the experience getting any better, no matter which OS you’re using.

Any.DO’s slick interface is easy on the eye, and puts the focus exactly where it matters, on the tasks at hand. The use of gestures, swiping and dragging to add, remove and update the app makes it incredibly intuitive to use.

Any.DO comes with two themes – with a white or black background – so you can personalize the app to suit your taste.

Adding, scheduling and completing tasks

When you first launch the GTD app, you’ll find a list of folders – Today, Tomorrow, This Week, and Later. You can start entering tasks and scheduling them. Any.DO has a native voice feature, making it easy to add tasks on the go, and a predictive text feature for when you have to type.

You can enter a task without a due date, or if you need reminder, you can add a single notification, or a schedule of them. If you want to add a date, you can do it manually, or simply enter the task, and drag and drop it into the appropriate folder.

Clicking on any given task allows you to add the task to your Personal or Work folder, or create a new one, label the task as high priority or add a note. If you haven’t already assigned a due date to the task, this is yet another way in which you can do just that.

Once a task is complete, you simply swipe it, and it will be crossed out. If you want to keep things neat and tidy, you can delete it entirely from your list, by shaking your phone.

Any.DO Widget

If you want to be able to keep up with your upcoming tasks simply by glancing at your phone, the Any.DO widgets will come in handy. Any.DO currently has two widgets available – a 3 row widget featuring your list of tasks, as well as buttons to enter new tasks using the keyboard or voice control. To switch between various due dates, simply tap the top of the widget.

If you don’t want the widget to take up too much space, you can opt for a compact one row widget featuring the first task on your list, and the same set of buttons.

Sync, Sort and Share

Opening up the Any.DO menu you’ll be presented with a few extra features. First, you can sort your tasks by date, folder or priority, and you can also clear all tasks.

An essential feature for any decent GTD app is being able to back it up to the cloud, or sync it with a desktop application. With Any.DO, you can currently sync with your Google account. All of your Any.DO tasks will be automatically added to your Google Tasks, and if you’re already using this Google service, you’ll be happy to know that the app offers two-way sync. Even if you aren’t, with Any.DO, it’s a great time to start, because you can add tasks from the comfort of your computer using Google Tasks.

Any.DO also has a collaborative element to it, allowing you to share any given task with friends or colleagues. This is a great feature to have for team projects, or even among family members, when it comes to planning the weekly menu, grocery lists and more. When someone updates a task list in Any.DO, you’ll receive a notification.

Still to come

Any.DO is already pretty feature-rich, but there’s still more to come from the app, aside from going crossplatform. Upcoming versions will include syncing to more services including Remember the Milk, Springpad, Google Calendar, Microsoft Exchange and more.

Our verdict

Any.DO is the kind of GTD app that makes you want to use it. It’s all to easy to use an app for a few days, and then lapse into your more disorganized system of scribbling lists on scraps of paper, or simply relying on your memory. With Any.DO, managing your to-do list becomes easier right from the your phone. With Any.DO, you really won’t have any excuses not to keep up with your tasks, and clearly quite a few people agree. The app launched just over a month ago and already has over 500,000 users, an average rating in the Android Market of 4.6, and has been rated over 6,000 times.